Archive for January, 2011

Partners in the Parks is a neat summer opportunity for interested Honors students to expand their horizons and broaden their experience bases by partnering with The National Collegiate Honors Council and the National Parks Service.

From the program’s website: Partners in the Parks is a unique and rewarding experiential learning opportunity for Honors students and faculty. This program was developed in cooperation with the National Parks Service offering participants the opportunity to experience and appreciate the unique natural treasures that make up America’s national park system. Projects are hosted by select Honors programs working in partnership with national parks in their area. Projects are designed to offer students and faculty unprecedented access and insights into the parks through extended 5-6 day excursions. Projects include educational and recreational seminars led by expert faculty and NPS rangers specifically designed to take advantage of the unique resources within each park.Partners in the Parks is sponsored by Southern Utah University in cooperation with the National Collegiate Honors Council and the National Park Service.

Britney, who co-founded the non-profit “Red Thread Movement”, has returned from her trip to Nepal and has submitted a report. This trip was made possible because of Honors College travel grant money.

She writes:

In 2009, I co-founded the Red Thread Movement, a student initiative to combat sex trafficking in Nepal. We both raise money to end sex trafficking in Nepal and generate awareness for the global human rights crime of the sexual exploitation of women and young girls. This Christmas break, I got to visit Nepal and see the border units and safe house that the RTM supports.

There is a Tibetan proverb that says, “On a long journey, you must die once.”

It has been almost two weeks now since I waved “goodbye” to the girls at the safe house I was visiting in Nepal and drove away, with tears in my eyes. This was the death of the journey for me because this moment held both great pain and great purpose. To me, a person’s eyes are the windows into their soul, and when I looked into the eyes of the girls as I hugged them for the last time, I recognized and understood something for the first time. I realized that combating sex trafficking is incredibly extensive and broad; it is a crime that occurs around the world. But even though the problem seems overwhelming, I have to remember that what I am doing is not really about an “issue;” the Red Thread Movement is about people. Laughing with these girls, singing songs with them, comforting them as they cried showed me that even if all of my efforts thus far had been for just one of these girls, it would have been worth it. I have died to seeing sex trafficking as a faceless crime. I was staying in a small village in Nepal, and there was a newspaper article about a girl who had gone missing from there; she was most likely trafficked. I finally fully understood that these girls are daughters and sisters and friends. Some of them are now my friends, and that is why it was so painful to say “goodbye” to them. I love them. But I know that there is purpose in leaving Nepal. Nearly 12,000 more women and girls from this country will be trafficked within this next year, and even though I do not know them personally and may never meet them, I love them too. And I believe that love always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres.

I am home now with a mission, a mission of love and determination. Currently, the Red Thread Movement supports two border units and one safe house in Nepal. Our goal for this year is to open an additional border unit and two more safe houses, so that we will be funding a total of three border units and three safe houses. Each border unit rescues around four girls every day, and the safe houses house 20 girls each. The border units each require $800/month to operate, and each safe house, $1500/month. We are already working on a structure for the Red Thread Movement, expanding it to support these projects. We will not stop advocating for the girls in Nepal and around the world who are being abused and exploited until sex trafficking is ended.

One of the bands supporting the Red Thread Movement, Sent By Ravens, has a song whose lyrics encapsulate my journey in Nepal: “Love. Love is all we need. I came here with nothing, but I left with everything.” I went to Nepal with a passion to end sex trafficking, and I left with a love for the girls there that now mean everything to me.